Hidden Dimension
by StMatt
Summary: When is an alternate universe not an AU? When Sam Winchester is involved! A tale of how Sam gets lost… Again!
1. Chapter 1

Sam was lost and alone, wandering endlessly through unfamiliar streets. At first he thought this must be a dream or some odd, otherworldly vision, but as time went on, his biggest fear began to seep into his brain.

_Had the yellow-eyed demon returned somehow?_

He had once again been whisked away unexpectedly to an unknown town, just as before. The only difference this time, he thought was that there were no others around like him, not that he could find anyway. It wasn't a ghost town, it was just a city, like any other, but unlike any he'd ever seen or heard before. The people who passed him on the streets seemed normal enough. Cars driving by, people walking… somewhere… to work, home, shopping. Two young boys collided into him, running past towards some kind of childhood mischief. He stopped and looked into the window of a nearby shop. He could see people inside making their purchases, the salesperson ringing up the sale and taking their money. It happened to be a jewelry store and the window display showcased wedding and engagement rings. Sam saw his own reflection in the glass as a beautiful engagement ring caught his eye. _Jess would love that one_, his mind thought before he could stop himself. As he shook the thought out of his head, he saw the reflection of two young girls behind him, staring at him and trying not to giggle, their heads bumping together as pre-teen girls do. He turned to face them and they ran off. Someone rushing by bumped into him as he stepped toward where the girls had stood. Sam immediately put his hand to his to his pocket to check his money, but no, the person had just been in a hurry and he had stepped into the way.

It certainly seemed like a normal, bustling city street, with one eerie exception. All around him was a deafening sound, shooting through him like a wave. At first he couldn't figure out what the sound was, and then it hit him. It echoed off the cars and the buildings and even the people themselves. He looked up at the flashing neon light over the shop and realized it should be humming with the vibration of the gas flowing through it. The sign flashed and blinked but no sound came from it. He was surrounded by a mind-splitting silence. Wondering if he had temporarily lost his hearing, he said out loud, "Hello?" His voice echoed in his mind but fell flat on the air.

He tried to catch the attention of some people walking by, but they shrunk back at his approach. "Hello?" he said again as he stepped toward one woman. "Can you hear me? Can you tell me where I am?" as he spoke directly to her, she shrank back from him in fear but instead of turning to run, she faded into the wall behind her. Panicked, Sam tried to find her, but there was only a shadow left where the woman had been. What had she looked like again? He couldn't remember mere seconds after looking intently into her face. He tried to remember the faces of the two young girls who had just stared at him moments before. Were they blonde? Brunette? One of each? Had they been wearing jackets or t-shirts and jeans? There had not been anything unusual about them, he knew that, but when Sam tried to picture their faces again, his mind drew a blank. What about the salesperson he had just observed? Had that been a man or a woman even? Or the person who bumped directly into him for that matter? As it happened, he remembered staring intently into the person's face, studying their features to be sure they weren't trying to pickpocket him. If he had to describe the person now, a few moments later, he wouldn't be able to describe a single detail.

Looking around frantically, he discovered that although the people going by appeared normal as he saw them, they were out of his mind immediately after passing by. The same with the cars. He focused on the one in front of him, sitting at the light. The instant the light changed and the car was gone, it was gone from his memory. Had it been a classic car or a new one? What color? A taxicab? Although he had stared at it for several minutes as it sat at the light he couldn't name the make, model or year, much less the color or anything about the people inside once it was gone. He turned and rushed into the store he had just looked into.

Looking around the antique store, Sam realized something was off but he couldn't quite place it. Wasn't there something in here he'd thought Jess would like? He looked around at the dusty knick-knacks and worn furniture. No, this wasn't right. He saw the salesperson out of the corner of his eye and turned to go speak to him. Him? Her? Sam wasn't sure. Rounding the corner of the aisle where the person had just been, Sam saw there was no one there now. "Oh! Come on!" he said out loud and his words echoed in his head. He went up to the counter and hit the little bell sitting there. Even the sound of the bell fell flat instead of the expected high-pitched ding. Still, no one showed to answer it. "Hello?" he called out. "Is anyone even here?" Frustrated, he turned and left the shop.

As he stepped back out onto the street, Sam saw the same two girls from before, standing in just the same way, their heads bumping into each other as if they seemed to have some kind of psychic connection that way. He saw them staring, pointing and giggling silently at a man whose back was to him, just as they had done with him. Shaking his head, he hurried down the sidewalk, almost knocking the man down in his rush to get away from the store. He saw the man instinctively reach for his wallet, obviously thinking he was up to no good and he muttered a brief apology as he and the stranger looked into each other's eyes. "No!" he cried out. "No! That's not possible!" and he turned and ran from the man, the store and the giggling girls.

Rounding the corner out of the way of passers-by, Sam leaned on the brick wall of a nearby building, gasping for breath. "Okay, Sam, get a grip," he said out loud. "This is a dream. You _know_ that this is a dream and you're going to wake up and figure it all out later." He laughed to himself. "Maybe it means nothing at all. Maybe you're having an ordinary dream for once, just like everybody else." A glass-shattering shriek split the air, banishing that thought from his head. "Or maybe not," he said to himself as he turned to go towards the sound.

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Rushing back onto the bustling street, Sam noticed that no one else had reacted to the ear-piercing scream. "_Okay, that's just odd,_" he thought to himself. "_People usually at least look up._" He heard the scream again and realized it was coming from the middle of the street. He sprinted to the street to see a woman lying there, hit by a car, another woman standing over her shrieking like a banshee. Sam grabbed the screaming woman and tried to pull her out of the street and away from traffic. The car had just kept going and now other cars were weaving around them, none stopping or even slowing down. Sam looked down at the bloody, mangled body of the woman lying on the pavement and knew instantly that she was dead, her pale blue eyes staring up at him. The other woman just stood there staring at the dead body and screaming like the devil himself was after her. Sam pulled on her arms but she remained rooted to the spot. "You need to get out of the…" he started to say, but stopped, shocked as he looked into her face, realizing it was the same woman lying dead in front of them. He released her arms and she shoved back at him hard, causing him to fall backwards onto the sidewalk just as a speeding car collided with her, throwing her body to the ground.

Picking himself up from the sidewalk, Sam looked down at her, knowing what he would see… a bloody mangled corpse with pale blue lifeless eyes staring up at him. He turned and ran from the scene, knowing that no one else was going to come to her aid, but that there was nothing he could do. As he ran, he heard petrified screams behind him. Realizing what it was, he changed his course, so as not to end up back in the alley where he had just ran out. He stopped and waited. The screams ceased and didn't start up again. Sam caught his breath, leaning on an iron post nearby. He tried to remember the woman's face but it was a blank now. He knew he had stared into her cold, dead eyes, but he couldn't remember even what color they had been. He looked around and began to figure out how to make his way back to the street and the store where he had been earlier, but do so without retracing his steps. After several wrong turns into dead-end streets and alleys, he finally found it. He stood on the opposite side of the street now and watched.

He saw himself appear out of nowhere and look around, confused at first, but then accepting that he was on an ordinary street. He saw the two boys run into him. He saw the shop window and the two girls. Watching the door of the shop, he saw himself come out and bump into _himself_. The first Sam began looking around frantically, trying to catch the attention of people on the street, staring intently at a car going by, then turned and went into the store as the second Sam ran off down the street in a panic. With both "Sams" gone, he watched and waited to see what would happen next. Nothing happened. He didn't reappear, he didn't come out of the store again, he didn't bump into himself again. The other Sams were gone. He started across the street but was stopped when he heard a voice behind him.

"Sam," the woman's voice said.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam turned, half expecting to see glowing yellow eyes staring back at him. They weren't. The eyes looking up at him were a soft, pale green. For the first time since he arrived, he could distinguish the features of another person and hold them in his mind's eye. The woman looked about his same age, maybe slightly younger. In addition to pale green eyes, she had soft, shoulder length brown hair and pale skin. Nothing about her features stood out, nor the way she dressed, in a simple white button down blouse and a tan skirt, with tan-colored sneakers. Her features and coloring blended in with her clothing. Sam realized that although monotone, she was the only person on the street not dressed in black or gray, himself included. He tilted his head as he looked curiously at her before speaking. "Do I know you?" he finally asked.

"No," she answered shaking her head. "But I've been watching you." The woman turned and began walking, not looking back at him but knowing he would follow. Sam fell into step with her as she continued speaking. "You're the first I've seen notice yourself," she said. "Most people don't, and they run into -- well, themselves -- several times a day." She looked up at his face, seeing his confusion. Not knowing what to say, he didn't speak so she went on, "Time is sometimes slow in catching up here, so there are echoes. What you ran into back there," she stopped walking and pointed down the street, "that was just an echo of yourself, nothing more. Still, most people don't notice it."

Sam looked down at her. She wasn't terribly short, she was average height, short only compared to him. Everything about her was entirely average, but Sam knew there had to be something more. She was the only person he could focus on without fading away. "Where is _here?_" he asked. "Umm, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," he added.

"I didn't throw it," the woman chuckled inwardly at the opportunity to quote a long-forgotten favorite movie. Not answering either of his questions, she turned to go into the corner diner. "The waitress here is really good," she said. "Come on, let's get some coffee. You look like you could use it." She opened the door and held it for Sam as he entered, turning back to look at her, his eyes full of questions. She led him to a nearby booth. As they sat down, a waitress walked up to them. Sam didn't look up as the woman ordered two coffees. "Hmph!" she scoffed as he stared only at the table, "Figures!"

He looked up at her, starting to ask what she meant, but she stopped him, "If you're no more observant than this, how did you ever figure out that was _you_ on the street? Hell, how are you able to see me now?" she asked, sarcasm ringing in her voice. Sam looked down at his hands as the waitress re-appeared with their coffees. As he looked down, he saw her shoes, tan colored sneakers. For the first time, Sam looked up at the waitress as she sat the coffee down and he saw sad, green eyes and shoulder length brown hair. Feeling his gaze upon her, the waitress turned and rushed away.

"She'll be back when your coffee needs refilling," the woman across from him in the booth said. "And you won't even realize she was here."

Sam looked her intently in the eyes. "But, she's…." he stopped and shook his head incredulously.

The woman only laughed as she said, "You finally get it. I gotta tell you, Sam, you were the last person I ever expected to end up here."

Sam repeated his question from earlier, "Where _is_ here? What is this place?" He looked around. The diner had a few patrons, but as Sam concentrated on them, he couldn't make out their features. The more he focused on them, the more they seemed to fade into the background of the diner.

"Stop staring, Sam, it's not polite," the woman scolded him. He turned his attention back to her and took a large gulp of his coffee. It scalded his tongue and he sat the cup back down hard on the table. If this was a dream, it certainly was realistic, he thought. He looked intently at the woman across from him, trying to figure out who, or what, she was. "Who are you?" he asked. "How do you know my name?"

"I'm a watcher," she answered. "I've been watching you since before you arrived here. Seriously, you've got somebody _looking_ for you, Sam! What the hell are you doing here?"

Sam looked at her in disbelief. It was as if she thought he was her voluntarily. He reached for his coffee and saw that it was full again, steam rising from the fresh re-filled cup. "I told you she was good," the woman said. She looked him intently in the face, studying his expression. "You really don't know where you are, do you?"

"Am I dead?" he asked with intense curiosity.

She laughed. "Don't we all wish! Well, some of us anyway," she added, indicating the waitress across the diner. "No, you're not dead, although I suspect you want to be?" she raised an eyebrow at him trying to read his expression again. His face told her she had struck a nerve. "I thought so," she said. "It isn't a conscious thought, you know. It isn't for most of us. I figured it out once… _she_ figured it out once," the woman gestured toward the waitress again. "You don't want to be dead, but you're not really living. You simply move from place to place… home to work to the store, back home again… and all you can think, wherever you go is, 'if only I could be anywhere but here!'" She saw the look of recognition cross Sam's face as she said it. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "You said it, didn't you? That's what you wanted with every part of you." Sam looked at her and nodded. She sipped her coffee and tipped the cup towards him, "Well, it looks like you got your wish." Setting her cup down, she leaned across the table at him, lacing her fingers together. "You're in a shadow world, Sam, an alternate universe. This is a world of lost souls." She sat back again and let him process what she'd said.

"But, you…" Sam stammered, "you're _here_ and you're…" he didn't even know how to put into words what he was thinking as he turned to focus on the waitress again. With his full attention on her, she dropped a tray of dishes and they crashed to the floor, the clattering china shattering with a dull sound.

"I told you it's not polite to stare," the woman said. "Look what you made her do!" she chided him like a child. "But you're right. Unlike the others, unlike you apparently, I came because I chose to come. I gotta tell ya, it ain't easy finding this place. You can't focus your attention on it. You see it out of the corner of your eye, but then when you turn to face it, it's gone. Just like the people here." Sam realized that was why he couldn't see their features or remember them. He had been trying to focus on them, and when he did, they instantly faded.

"But how did I get here, then?" he asked. She seemed to have the answers he was seeking, and she didn't mind his attention on her. This was the only person in this world that appeared capable of helping him.

"Like I said, you came because you wanted to. You're here because you're running from your life – your real life. None of these people are aware of where they are… not really," she indicated the other diner patrons and the people passing by on the street. "As far as they're concerned, they're living out their lives back in the so-called 'real' world, going about their everyday business. But their souls are lost to that world… lost forever. These are the people that world doesn't care about. They exist, but life is passing them by unnoticed. Most of them have no one to care about them… husbands, wives, children… just don't care. Or so they think sometimes. Believing no one cares can be enough. Believing you don't belong. So they end up here. And here they'll stay." Her words sounded ominous.

Sam started to ask her about that, what she meant by "lost forever" when he saw the two young boys from before run past the diner window. He changed his approach. "And the children?" he asked.

The woman saw a single boy's reflection in Sam's eyes as he watched them run by. "That was Ryan," she said flatly.

"No, there were two of them," Sam replied insistently.

She turned and looked out the window in the direction they boys had taken. Her voice turned sad. "No. There was only Ryan. His father beats him and he has no friends in school. Even his teachers…" for the first time since they met, Sam could hear emotion in her voice as her throat tightened against the words, "they see the bruises, the cuts, the _burns_, but they do nothing. It's their _job_ to notice children like Ryan… to help them. And still, he has no one. So here he is, at eight years old." She stopped to swallow the catch in her throat and her voice turned flat again. "The boy with him is his imaginary friend -- the only friend he has. At least here, they can play and be boys before Ryan grows up. The 'real' Ryan, that is. He's never going to leave here. He's going to grow up, drop out of high school and get a job… whatever job he can, at minimum wage. He's going to marry and then divorce and he's going to live to be a very old, very bitter man. And his soul will live here in the shadows until he dies. When he does, he may realize where he's been. They often do. By then it's too late."

Sam vaguely remembered the woman dying on the street as she spoke. "The woman I saw…" he started to ask.

She looked at him warily. "I told you, time here has trouble catching up. She didn't realize she was already dead, that it was already too late." Her eyes shot to the ceiling as though looking at some invisible screen. "She made the news, believe it or not. 'Unidentified woman dead after a hit and run. Police are asking for help in identifying her body.'" She spoke as if reading from a teleprompter. "Her name was Heather. She worked in a downtown office, in a cube farm. No one from work even knew her well enough to recognize her on the news – that's how alone in the world she was. She's going to be buried as another 'Jane Doe', believed to be homeless. Even the woman who runs her apartment complex is going to see the news and be saddened by the tragedy without ever realizing it was her. And a month from now, she's going to be pissed at yet another tenant who stiffed her for the rent and left a starving cat behind. She owned a cat, by the way, her only companion. I do too," she indicated the waitress as she spoke as if speaking about her instead of herself. She shook her head in amusement as she said, "I don't know why we always have cats!" Laughing at her own joke, she looked over at Sam. She could tell he got the joke but he wasn't laughing.

"How do you…?" he asked.

"Know about these people?" she finished his question for him. "I told you. I'm a watcher. It's what I do -- pay attention to the invisible people of the world."

Sam had come to realize that focusing attention on anyone in this alternate world caused them to shrink back from it. "But how…" he started to say, "you can't… how do you focus your attention on them?"

"It's easy," she answered. "By becoming invisible too. Here, I'll show you." She stood up, directly in the path of a man entering the diner and heading toward a back table. He walked right through her. Sam stared as if staring at a ghost and wondered to himself how she did it. "Don't even try it, Sam," she said to him. "You couldn't be invisible if you tried. How you even get by with being inconspicuous…"

Sam looked around uncomfortably. "I shouldn't be here…" he said hesitantly. "Dean needs me. I need to get back…"

The woman looked him over as she sipped her coffee, studying him. "No, you shouldn't be here," she agreed with him. "But there's no way back."


	3. Chapter 3

"No, you're wrong," Sam insisted. He stood to leave, nearly knocking the waitress over as he didn't see her walking by again. Learning the rules of this world, instead of apologizing to her, he merely helped her steady herself and then quickly turned away from her. He reached for his wallet to pay for the coffee but the woman in the booth stopped him.

"It's okay, I've got it," she said as she dropped $50 on the table. Seeing his look at the amount for just coffee, she shrugged and said, "Hey, I work hard for the money. It's only right that I get an incredible tip every once in a while."

As they left the diner, Sam turned to look inside. "How can you be … here … and there at the same time? That doesn't seem like one of those time echoes you talked about."

"No, you're right," she answered looking back at herself in the diner with a forlorn look in her eyes. "Once I figured it out… that I wasn't really living anymore, that I was one of the walking shadows, I began to do some research. The more I learned about the dejected people of the world, and the more I learned about physics and alternate universes, the closer I came to finding this place. But physics only got me so far." She looked him in the face. "I assume you know about things that can't be explained by physics or science?" Seeing him nod slightly, she continued, "I decided if this place did exist, I would find it. It took years, but I finally did. And as for _her_," she indicated the waitress over her shoulder without looking back at her. "That's the shell of what remains back on Earth, back in your reality." Sam turned to look into the diner again, but it was gone. In its place stood a small local grocery store.

"Wait! What…?" Sam asked, thinking "_okay, I don't care what she says. This MUST be a dream!_"

The woman turned and looked at the store. "Oh, that," she chuckled. "Even places can be forgotten -- ignored. Didn't you know that?" Sam just looked at her, confused, so she explained further, "When a store closes down and another one opens, how many people really remember it? When you're on the road and you pass through a diner, do you know it from all the other countless diners you've been to? No, you don't. Forgotten memories. Forgotten places. They all fade eventually. Here they just do it more quickly."

Sam caught sight of the waitress walking away from them, her tan skirt moving away into the crowd and eventually blending in to the gray figures on the street. He turned to face the woman in front of him again. "It would be easier if I knew your name," he said.

"No, it wouldn't," she answered. "You wouldn't remember it anyway. You never did," she added vaguely.

"Tell me," Sam said, letting the name issue drop. "Those people, that boy… how do you know their lives? Their futures?" He wanted to know if she could see other futures too, but he didn't say so.

"I don't have to tell you. I can show you," she finally gave an answer that Sam wanted to hear. She took his hand in hers and Sam could see what she saw. He was finally able to look fully into the face of a nearby stranger. As he focused on an old man that he hadn't even realized was there, sitting near them on a bench, he could see the man's entire life passing in front of them. He saw the fight with the high school sweetheart, he saw the teenage boy's dejected tears, the gun in his hand, ready to pull the trigger but never actually doing it. He watched as the man's life passed in front of him like watching a movie screen.

"No! Jen, why?" the teenager cried, sitting in a run down car with a young blonde.

Sam heard her reply, typical, but coming from such a young girl, it sounded new again. "It isn't you, Jerry, I swear!" Tears were streaming down her face. "I just want more out of life, that's all." She turned to face him, pushing a ring into his hands. "You're happy with your life like it is. I understand that. But… it just isn't enough for me. Don't you see? I'll die if I have to stay here!" She kissed him on the cheek and got out of the car.

Sam saw the scene switch to the boy's bedroom later that night. Holding his father's gun, he reached to put it to his head several times, Jen's voice ringing in his ears. He never pulled the trigger and finally fell fast asleep, holding the gun to him like he was hugging a teddy bear. Sam wondered that the gun never went off in his sleep. The woman next to him, holding his hand leaned into his ear and whispered, "He never took the safety off. He didn't even know how." Sam started at the sound of her voice so close to him. He had forgotten she was even standing there next to him.

The man's life continued on the wavering screen in front of Sam's eyes. He joined the army to pay for college but never went. Coming home after his extended tour, battle-scarred, he sat in his same childhood bedroom and drank himself into a stupor every night, falling asleep hugging his father's pistol, only now knowing how to work it. Just knowing that he could was enough. He moved to the city and drove a taxi for a living. He never married and only retired when it was forced upon him. His death was slow and painful from lung cancer. Sam saw the man's funeral, a few former co-workers were all that showed up, leaving early. Sam turned to look at the man sitting in front of him, old, coughing, his lungs racked with disease, and realized that he had just witnessed the man die.

"Wait," the woman whispered. Sam turned back to the screen and saw an old woman walking into the funeral home where his body was laid out. Walking up to the casket and placing her hand on the side, she gasped and cried out, " Jerry! I had no idea! I saw the obituary and I had to come." She put her hand to her mouth and looked around the empty funeral home, turning to leave in tears.

Sam turned away from the man as the woman with him led him by the hand around the corner. She pointed and he looked up into a window at a woman sitting there, holding a small dog. "Or, sometimes it's dogs," the woman holding his hand chuckled. The woman in the window, in her mid-thirties, looked familiar.

As he studied her sad features, another wavering screen appeared before him. It too started in the car, with the boy, Jerry, only now he was seeing it from the girl's point of view. He felt her anguish as she cried out how badly she wanted – needed – to leave their small town. He felt the tug at her heart, wanting desperately for Jerry to come with her. He saw her packing on the night that Jerry tried to kill himself. Watching the girl's life pass in front of his eyes, Sam realized that as they grew older, they lived a mere two blocks from each other. She married an older man who didn't really care for her. She was merely a trophy wife, in an unhappy marriage, crying herself to sleep at night alone in her oversized apartment. Her husband died and she was alone in the world, with everything anyone could want, not needing to work, but still unhappy. She grew older and one day Sam saw her sitting at her kitchen table reading the paper, an old woman now. Her eyes grew wide as she saw the obituary in front of her. Sam saw her dress carefully, selecting her clothes and handbag with care. He saw her go down the steps of her apartment building and hail a cab to the funeral home. Once again he saw her walking up to Jerry's casket and crying as she left. The cab had pulled away and she went running after it, grabbing her left arm and her chest as she ran. If there had been someone to call an ambulance for her, she may have survived the heart attack, but as she had no one, she died on the steps of the funeral home.

Sam turned back to the woman beside him, still holding her hand. "But… he was so very old, and she…" he turned and looked up at the woman in the window.

"He's been here longer," the woman told him. "Right now… this very minute in the 'real world' they're both in their twenties. He's still in Iraq, but he'll be coming home soon, and moving to the same city she did. But they'll never see each other again, until…" She looked up at the screen still showing the woman dying and it faded. "Time works very differently here, as you've seen with the time echoes. For some, it stops entirely."

A thought occurred to Sam and he grew frustrated. "But, if all this hasn't happened yet, it could still change for them! They love each other! They should be together! Can't you _do_ something?"

"Not one to accept fate are you, Sam?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "You think I don't want to help them if I could?" Her voice rose with her own anger, and then fell again, back to her monotone sound. "I didn't know, Sam. Before I came here, I didn't know I would see these things. I thought I would be … like them…" she indicated the gray, faded people around them.

"Can you…?" he didn't want to ask, but he had to, "Can you see _anyone's_ future?"

"Meaning yours?" she asked. "Before you came here, no. I can only see the lives of the lost, Sam, the people here in this world. You were never supposed to be here."

"I didn't mean me…" Sam started to say, then a thought passed through his mind. His memory was slowly returning. "Wait… you said you saw me before I arrived! If I'm not supposed to be here, then how come you could see me before?"

"I didn't say I saw your future. I said I could see your life as it was in the real world. A life where someone cares about you. A life you weren't supposed to leave," she looked at the ground, not wanting to answer his question but knowing he wouldn't let up. "You asked if you know me and I told you the truth – you don't. That doesn't mean I didn't know you." Sam looked puzzled but remained silent. Her voice became a hushed whisper, "I went to Stanford. Freshman year I sat behind you in American Lit. You kept turning around to look at the pretty blonde in the back row, but you always looked right through me…" Her voice trailed off and the scenery around them shifted and wavered. Sam saw they were standing next to a run-down motel. It was the middle of the night, dark and quiet except for the singing of the cicadas.

Releasing his hand, she said, "If you didn't want to know about yourself, I can only assume you meant…" she pointed and one of the motel room doors opened and a young boy, around 9 or 10 years old came out, his hands shoved in his jeans pockets, his shoulders hunched over against the cold. Sam saw his face as he passed under the halo of the street lamp. He turned to look at the woman, his eyes wide.

"Dean?"


	4. Chapter 4

She didn't respond, instead following the young boy to the nearby convenience store. They followed him in and watched as he went straight to the nearby video game, muttering to himself about being bored. They watched the store clerk tell the boy he needed to leave and followed as he went back to the room. Standing outside the room, they saw John pull up and run into the room. They heard guns firing and John yelling at his eldest son. The woman looked up at Sam, "His young heart died that night," she said, allowing the sadness in her heart to sound in her voice. "He never allowed himself a moment's peace after that."

Sam looked her hard in the eye. "Then you know…" his throat tightened. "You know his future, don't you? _If _he has a future?"

"I do, Sam, but…" she looked away, pain showing on her face.

"But, _what?_" he insisted, grabbing both her hands. If she was the key to seeing Dean's future, he had to know. She tried to pull away, but he held her tight, bruising her wrists.

"It doesn't make sense!" she cried out and the scene shifted again.

They were standing in a farmhouse in South Dakota. A very young girl was being beaten by her drunken father. Sam tried to intervene, grabbing at the man's arm, but he passed right through him.

"It's an echo," the woman said, looking away from the scene in front of her. She grabbed Sam's arm. "Please, let's just go."

Sam focused on the young child in front of him realizing that somehow he was controlling whether they stayed to watch this scene through. Instead of a movie screen, they were in the middle of it, just as they had been at the motel. The girl was sitting in the middle of the floor hugging a teddy bear as the man pounded on her head, her face and her body. Feeling helpless, Sam could see a woman through the kitchen doorway, her back to them, standing at the sink. He watched in horror as the man lifted the girl by her long brown hair and dragged her towards the stairs. He started to follow them, trying everything he could to stop the man, but he was invisible to them.

"_Sam! No!_" the woman with him screeched at him. "There are some things you don't want to know," she growled and pushed on the screen door as she walked onto the porch of the house, letting it slam shut behind her. Sam reached to push at it, but his hand went right through. Still invisible, he was able to step through the door. The woman was standing on the porch, facing the street, her back to him. Her body was shaking and Sam could see she was crying. He reached his hand toward her shoulder and then let it drop without touching her.

Suddenly the door slammed behind him and he turned, startled, to see a teenage girl in jeans and a halter top, carrying a suitcase. "I'm going to California and there's nothing you can do to stop me!" the girl screamed as she walked right through Sam. An older woman came running after her as she stormed down the steps of the porch. The woman with Sam kept her back to them, never turning or even flinching.

The older woman was wearing a faded cotton dress and Sam realized she had been the same woman he'd seen in the kitchen. "He'll be home in a couple of hours!" the woman protested. "What am I supposed to tell him?" She was obviously more concerned about her husband's reaction to her news than to her daughter's plight.

"I don't care what you tell him or don't tell him, Mama!" the girl cried. "I'm leaving!" She threw her suitcase into the powder blue pickup truck sitting in the yard and climbed into the driver's seat. She paused and looked out the open window at the woman still pulling on her arm. "I'm sorry, Mama! I am! But I can't stay here! I can't let him…" the girl looked up at a window of the farmhouse. "He's never going to touch me again!" She started up the truck and pulled away.

The woman with Sam came over to him and touched him on the arm. "Have you seen enough?" she asked. The farmhouse wavered and disappeared and Sam found himself back at Stanford, in a familiar classroom. "I guess not," the woman said, letting her arm drop from his and walking to the back of the room to lean against the wall. Students were still straggling in on the first day of class as the professor was calling roll. "Sam Winchester," the professor said. "Sam Winchester?" Sam looked around as no one answered and the professor went on, "Rebecca Winstead?" A timid brunette next to where Sam was standing in the aisle raised her hand just as the door in the back of the room slammed open and he saw a younger version of himself coming into the room, unsure if he had the right classroom.

"Uh, is this American Lit?" the younger Sam asked.

The professor looked up from his podium, glancing at Sam over his glasses. "It is," he said. "Sam Winchester?"

"Yes, sir," the young-looking Sam replied awkwardly and came down to take a seat in front of the brunette. As he came down the steps into the classroom, a pretty young blonde caught his eye and he smiled shyly at her.

Sam jumped out of the way, not wanting his younger self to walk through him. He walked slowly back up the steps of the classroom toward where the woman was leaning on the wall.

"Happy now?" she said, glaring at him.

He looked down at her. "Rebecca?" he asked.

"Don't you _dare_ say that name!" she said. "You never knew me, looked right through me! You don't have the right to say that name!" She took his hand and they were standing at the crossroads now. Sam heard a car rumbling up to them and turned to see the Impala come to a screeching halt and Dean jump out. Sam watched his brother and realized what Rebecca had meant. She was right. It didn't make sense, and yet it made perfect sense. Sam knew what was going to happen, but one thing caught him by surprise. The crossroads demon that Dean met.

After watching the new scene play out, he turned to face Rebecca and held both her hands in his, looking into her eyes. "Rebecca," he said, not caring that she didn't want him to say her name. "What would you do if you could leave this place?"

Her sad eyes looked up at him. "I can't, Sam," she replied. "I just can't…" her voice softened and she looked away.

"But you could help so many people!" Sam protested, not letting go of her hands. "Don't you see? They need you!"

She looked at him and nodded. "I would like that," she whispered.

--------------------

Sam found himself standing alone near the highway. He looked up and, as expected, he saw a diner nearby. As he walked up, he saw the Impala pull up to the front of the diner and Dean get out. Quickly walking up to him, Dean said, "Dammit, Sammy, _where the hell have you been?_"

Sam walked towards him. "Why?" he asked. "I've only been gone a few hours…"

Dean interrupted him, "_A few hours?_" He was obviously still upset. "Sam, you've been missing for _two weeks_! I swear I'm gonna put a tracking device on you!"

"_Two weeks?_" Sam thought. To Dean, he said, "How did you find me, then?"

"You left me a message, you jerk!" Dean said, still angry. He held up his phone and showed Sam the text message from Sam's phone, with nothing but coordinates listed on the message.

"Oh," Sam answered, looking at the message a bit confused. He scratched his head. "Two weeks? That explains why I'm so hungry then." He turned to go into the diner. Looking over at Dean, he said playfully, "…and you're the jerk!"

"Bitch!" Dean said back to him and followed his younger brother into the diner. He was surprised when Sam took a nearby booth, next to the window instead of one in the corner.

Sam looked around like he was looking for someone. "I hear the waitress here is really good," he said. As expected, a woman with soft brown hair and pale green eyes, wearing tan sneakers, a tan skirt and a white button-down blouse stepped up to them. Her face looked much older than her years as she took their order without looking at them.

"What'll it be?" she asked, looking down at the floor. Sam studied the name badge that she wore and smiled when he saw the name, 'Becky,' written on it. Dean saw Sam staring intently at the woman and turned his attention to her too, his eyes growing wide with fear at the sight of her.

Dean's face became pale as death itself as he stared at the waitress and then at Sam, who smiled directly at her and said, "Rebecca? Rebecca Winstead?"


End file.
